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Seeking More Aid as Vaccination Rates Rise in Newark

NEWARK, Aug. 30 — The lobby of the health department’s main office was afloat with helium balloons of school buses and Sesame Street characters, and the room was filling up with small children waiting for free immunizations against whooping cough, tetanus and hepatitis, among other diseases.

In March, Newark won a national award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for bringing its immunization rate among children ages 19 months to 35 months up to 75 percent in 2005 from 58 percent in 2001 (statewide, it is 78 percent). But the monitoring help the city received from the federal government — valued at more than $300,000 a year — is no longer available, after the Centers reduced the number of cities it tracked last year.

So amid its celebration over winning the award, the city’s Department of Health and Human Services is seeking a way to replace the federal program that contacted parents to see if their children had received their required shots.

“We’re going to try to find other resources,” said Maria Vizcarrondo, the city health department director. “In the last decade Newark was really down with Mississippi and very, very poor communities.”

Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, the state epidemiologist and deputy commissioner of the Department of Health and Senior Services, credited a statewide Internet-based immunization registry, made official in 2004, with helping to improve immunization rates. Doctors and others can get access to the listings immediately when determining whether a child is up to date on vaccines.

“There’s no reason why a child in this state shouldn’t be vaccinated age-appropriately,” he said, referring to public health insurance programs. “We’re going to continue to support Newark in its efforts.”

Dr. Bresnitz said the state had provided about $600,000 a year to Newark’s efforts in recent years — nearly the entire $610,000 of the city’s immunization program — and planned to continue to do so. “No one can be complacent about improving the rates,” he said. “It could very easily slip back to lower rates if we don’t keep working at it.”

Separate from the phone calls the federal health officials made for several years to determine which children were lacking vaccinations, Newark has enlisted Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and Eliza Corp. of Boston to contact the parents of virtually every child in the city and alert them that they need shots, right when they are due. (These calls will continue.)

With the goal of increasing vaccination rates to 90 percent by 2010, the city has worked with businesses, nonprofit organizations, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey on public service announcements and other education efforts, and trained workers in the city’s 200 licensed child care centers about the importance of vaccinations.

“Due to their work with the business community, the medical community and other partners in the coalition, they did a remarkable job,” Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control, said of Newark.

Asked about the curtailing of the federal phone-call program, Mr. Allen said the agency had decided to work more on monitoring efforts for adolescents in need of vaccinations, but was still tracking infant immunization rates at the state level.

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Jeannette Burgos, the city’s immunization coordinator, expects that the Newark clinic will serve 65 children a day once school starts on Thursday, doubling its nursing staff for the next week to accommodate the crowd.

The effort is known as the School Bus Express. “We negotiated with the school district a 30-day grace period for kids to get their boosters, so they would not be kept out of school,” Ms. Vizcarrondo said.

Children of all ages were taking advantage of the program on Thursday.

“Count to 10 and close your eyes,” Roslyn Goodwin, the clinic’s head nurse, told Tatiana Hernandez, 6, who was getting two booster shots, for hepatitis A and chicken pox. Tatiana obliged, and Ms. Goodwin gave the shot right at “one.”

“That hurted! That hurted! That hurted!” Tatiana said. Ms. Goodwin promised that she would get stickers and a lollipop if she kept cooperating. After the second shot, and the same exclamations from Tatiana, the girl received three stickers, “because you were such a good girl,” Ms. Goodwin said.

Tatiana’s mother, Aury Ortiz, said the family had always come to the health department for shots. Now Tatiana was entirely caught up and ready to start first grade at the city’s First Avenue School.

Johanna Rodriguez said her third child, Julissa, who is three months old, had not yet received her Social Security card, so she did not qualify for Medicaid. Julissa needed three shots, which could cost $40 to $60 each, but Ms. Rodriguez said her doctor’s office “told me it was free here.”